5 very underrated UX principles critical for your product’s success
In the realm of User Experience (UX) design, a handful of principles are commonly highlighted. However, as our digital landscape evolves, it’s essential to uncover and understand some underrated facets of UX design that can significantly boost product’s success.
This article will explore five usually overlooked UX design principles, that contribute more than most of the classic UX heuristics: loading perception, the power of icons, designing for the right size and context, speed performance.
1. Loading Perception
The first principle revolves around an aspect that is often neglected: loading perception. Understanding the difference between the actual and perceived loading time of a website or app can drastically improve the user experience. A key to managing this perception lies in the strategic use of skeletons and spinners.
Skeletons, simple wireframe-like placeholders, give users an idea of what to expect before the content fully loads. Spinners, meanwhile, indicate progress, reassuring users that the system is working. By weaving in these elements, UX designers can significantly enhance user satisfaction, essentially making websites feel faster without any hardware upgrades.
✅ What to do: Let your team know about the idea around loading perception. This does not mean decreasing speed or not allowing the site to reveal the content. It’s about preparing the user, in the very short period of waiting time, of what follows up next . Skeletons are mostly used for web apps, mobile apps and platforms, not static websites(faster loading).
2. Build for speed
Website speed is a critical component of the user experience and plays a vital role in maintaining user engagement and satisfaction. It directly impacts bounce rates, conversion rates, and overall user satisfaction. A delay as short as a single second can lead to a 7% reduction in conversions. In fact, improving website speed by just one second can have a more immediate and substantial impact on user experience and site performance than conducting a full UX audit.
While UX audits can yield important insights for long-term improvement, they often require weeks to complete and implement. On the other hand, speed optimisation can provide a quicker win, enhancing user engagement and potentially boosting conversion rates almost immediately. Hence, prioritising speed improvement can be a highly effective strategy for improving overall user experience.
✅ What to do: Align with devs on the things that can be faster, easier to load and lean towards better asset exporting from your design tool.
3. The Power of Icons
Icons, though small, play a substantial role in UX design. Beautiful, well-designed icons not only communicate information succinctly but also guide users through an interface. They are akin to the typefaces used, subtly shaping the user’s journey.
Subtle animations in icons can further enhance the user experience, indicating a commitment to detail. Pairing this with the selection of an icon pack that resonates with your brand’s aesthetic can turn the experience into a more enjoyable one for users. Remember, the power of icons extends beyond their beauty; their meaningful use reduces ambiguity, improving the interface’s overall usability.
Here’s a great list of available open source icons: https://react-icons.github.io/react-icons/icons?name=fi
Get Socrates Charisis’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Subscribe
Remember me for faster sign in
✅ What to do: Be serious about picking an icon library to start with. Look for resources, pay for a license if needed. Follow their guidelines when you need design a custom icon.
4. Does it fit my device?
This one focuses on designing for the right size and context, a concept that goes beyond responsive design. This principle encourages UX designers to create prototypes that include realistic elements like bottom bars, system bars, and browser top bars, especially when designing for web-pages mobile screens.
Many times, this realistic approach helps designers understand how their design fits within the environment of a browser on a mobile phone. It facilitates decision-making on crucial aspects like content prioritisation, scrolling mechanics, and optimal font sizes, ultimately leading to a better user experience.
Here’s a great Design System kit by Joey Banks that helps you incorporate system-ui stuff onto your project.
🔥 https://www.figma.com/community/file/1121065701252736567
✅ What to do: System navigation bars (top/bottom), browser bars, and status indicators are not just elements to work around, but useful tools in your design toolkit. Incorporating them when crafting high-fidelity screens helps provide a realistic view of how your designs fit within a specific system context. Moreover, it allows you to assess how these system elements interact with your design real estate. Leveraging these features during the design process can lead to more accurate, user-friendly designs that mesh seamlessly with the system’s existing interface components. On top of that, incorporating realistic keyboards in your prototypes is a must. Go the way, prototype the text or numeric input and you won’t lose.
5. Language, not Pixels
As designers, we’re not just creating products. We’re creating a language, a dialogue with users that transcends the screen. A conversation that starts with a user’s first click and evolves with every interaction.
The idea of design as a language isn’t a hyperbole; rather, it’s a fundamental principle that underscores the role of design in digital interfaces. Every element of a design, from the colour scheme and typography to the navigation and layout, communicates something to the user. This communication creates an ongoing dialogue between the user and the product.
It all begins with the user’s first interaction with the product, often a click or a tap. From that point, every element they interact with, every response they receive from the system, continues the conversation. If the design is intuitive and engaging, the dialogue feels smooth and natural, encouraging the user to continue interacting with the product.
Moreover, this dialogue evolves over time. As users become more familiar with the product, they learn its unique “language” — its visual cues, interaction patterns, and feedback mechanisms. They begin to understand what to expect and how to navigate the product effectively, enhancing their overall user experience.
Furthermore, designers can use this dialogue to guide users, helping them achieve their goals and encouraging specific behaviours. For instance, a well-designed call-to-action button can prompt users to make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter, or perform other desired actions.
In this sense, design isn’t just about creating an aesthetically pleasing product; it’s about creating a meaningful and engaging conversation with users. This conversation, when done right, can lead to higher user satisfaction, increased engagement, and ultimately, the success of the product.
✅ What to do #1: To begin with, not all tools provide the interaction and haptic power you might look for, even if you need to test something. Learn new tools, that lean towards more realistic experiences. Facebook Origami & Protopie are just 2 of the most popular tools for advanced prototyping. Airbnb, Meta, Spotify and others, really build stuff there. Even, Play a new mobile first swift-UI prototyping tool is hiting the charts these days.
Furthermore, WebGL, the GSAP framework and no code/low code tools like Framer, Web-flow are truly responsible for some of the finest web experiences out there. Learn new tools, explore tech.
✅ What to do #2: If you are building a system, make sure you take care of its interaction, at least on a documentation level. Don’t forget your “hover” states, the “ripple” effects, the success and error flows that come up after a certain interaction. Take care of these “details”.
✅ What to do #3: Feel the apps. Start exploring existing apps and try to understand what their.. “language” is. The haptics, the vibrations, the flow and transitions, everything. Keep in mind: Behind very smart touch there’s a designer.
Conclusion
To sum this up, as we navigate through the ever-evolving landscape of UX design, it’s crucial to remain mindful of these underrated yet impactful principles. From viewing system elements as allies to creating an engaging dialogue with users, every detail matters in crafting a superior user experience.